Chemist Held for Radioactive Material

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) _ A chemist arrested after radioactive materials were found in his home is not suspected of any terrorist activities, officials said.

Riad Mohamad Ahmed, 62, was just a sloppy commercial chemist with a record of run-ins with regulators dating to the 1980s, officials said Friday.

Ahmed, who pleaded no contest last year to illegal possession of radioactive material that resulted in a lab explosion, was arrested Thursday for allegedly possessing such material again. He was released Friday on $50,000 bail.

"I have great concerns because Dr. Ahmed has repeatedly demonstrated a matter of utter disregard for the health and safety of the public and his employees, and for the appropriate handling of radioactive material," said Orange County Deputy District Attorney Nick Thompson.

A telephone call to Ahmed's home was not answered Friday, and court filings do not list an attorney.

"He was sloppy. He had a fire and explosion at one (lab) … and a problem at another one," said Dan Suter, a field specialist with the Environmental Protection Agency who oversaw the cleanup of Ahmed's labs.

Ahmed was arrested after a routine probation check at his Westminster home turned up evidence of radioactive carbon 14, which is used to tag and trace chemicals. The chemical contains low levels of radiation and is found naturally, but has been linked to cancer when ingested or inhaled.

Investigators said the amount of carbon 14 found at Ahmed's home exceeded what he had been previously licensed to dispose of. They say he had used carbon 14 in such work as research on hair products, and had prepared it for use by commercial research labs.

Ahmed pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor for the 1997 explosion at a laboratory in Gardena. His state license to handle radioactive material was revoked and the lab closed.

In that incident, Ahmed was working with carbon 14 at the California Bionuclear Corp. when a small explosion and fire occurred, said Daniel Wright, Los Angeles County deputy district attorney. The federal government later labeled the building a Superfund cleanup site.

Ahmed was charged in 1986 with mishandling radioactive, flammable and explosive materials at another lab. He pleaded no contest, served 60 days in jail and was fined $15,000.

Ahmed told prosecutors he was born in Cairo, immigrated to the United States in the 1970s and earned a doctorate in bionuclear chemistry from the University of Southern California.